Monthly Archives: December 2017

On this last day of the year, I just want to make a political point:
“free college” and “free healthcare” are not socialism.

Both are very wise capitalistic concepts.
When society invests in both, it saves a ton of costs for both the worker and their employer. If society institutes a policy that ends up lowering the net cost to business and to taxpayers, that is PRO BUSINESS/PRO TAXPAYER, not socialism.
No cost college will pay for itself in increased taxes over the lifetime of the higher earning grad, plus some. The same is true with universal healthcare. If you take what the taxpayer and the corporation currently spend on medical care, plus the loss of productivity our current system costs our economy, universal healthcare would save approximately 1/2 of a TRILLION dollars per year!
Over time, the college educated taxpayer would pay enough into the IRS to also increase the coffers by hundreds of Billions, so, if, instead of giving away the treasury to the richest .1%, the congress had enacted policies to create a universal no cost education and universal no cost healthcare system, we would have balanced the budget in a few years and in my lifetime, we might pay off the debt. Along the way, we would pretty much end poverty in America. Because every child in America could pursue as much education as they could stand, we would have a much larger talent pool to solve ours and the world’s problems and thus also remained at the forefront of world economies….

So, if you think you must be socialist, and/or like Bernie Sanders to support two of the smartest money-saving ideas in modern society, think again, you just need to be what Trump isn’t: a smart businessperson.

In that I assume everyone is on the same path as I am and that everyone is on the same place on that path. It occurs to me, that I only recently realized a thing about race. That thing is that there are no races.

Race is both the most obvious thing in the world, and the most non-existent thing in the world. Yes, one can look around the world, and even look around any diverse place in America and see white, black, brown, yellow and red people, though we are all various shades of brown/black with some of those whose origins are from the far north being so pale as to be almost pink or white.

What we are is families and tribes, and various genetic traits in regards to skin color have evolved over a few millions of years, and yes, some genetic differences not related to skin color also developed over this time, and as we all come from families who tended to inbreed and to not move around much, a long nose, or a large ear or a odd shaped toe might be more prominent in one group than the next, but people from all regions, and all colors are tall, short, skinny, fat, smart, stupid, and 100s of other traits often associated with one group or another. In fact, scientists tell us there is more genetic variation within color groups than there are between them. Think about that. If you are “white”, there is a “black” person who shares more genetic material with you, than some other person who is identified as “white.”

Now, don’t misunderstand me, there is much racism in America, and to have racism, you must have races, even if you make them up. That is exactly what has happened. So, we have very different cultural experiences, not based so much on race, but on racism. If you a human being with dark skin, we assume your ancestry to be African, which it likely is, but your experience, especially if your family has been in the USA a along time, is different, not so much because your family 200 years ago came from Senegal, instead of Sweden, but because your ancestor probably landed here in chains and then after some generations, your ancestors were “freed” and still treated nominally like slaves, and then, unless your family was really lucky, even up to today, your family has been treated differently from some Irish family, whose ancestor came over indentured 150 years ago, but was able to pass for “English” within a generation, due to the pigmentation of their skin. Neither the English, nor the Irish, nor the man from Senegal are white or black, as a thing, give the same circumstances, they have a near equal probability of doing the same things and reacting the same way.

Somehow, it took me 50 years to realize we did not need to “treat” people of color the same,” we “White” needed to recognize that ALL people ARE the same. That we are not “White” and they are not “Black” or “Brown” or even in the more offensive shadings of “Yellow” and “Red.”

“They” are “Us.” We are one people, with many different family and tribal heritages. As the title says, there are NO Black people in America. There are lots of people with lots of different appearances and experiences, but until we get over the basic concept that there are real and significant differences between people BECAUSE of skin color, we cannot be anywhere near as great as we could be.

Until we can see that every child, no matter their color, no matter what neighborhood, needs the very best possible education and the best healthcare, as well as the fullest work opportunity, so they can contribute to our society to their fullest, we will continue to fail.

We will fail them. We will fail at our goal of equality. We will fail at our economic successes. We will fail as human beings as our very survival as a RACE, depends on our ability to maximize the effectiveness of every human being on the planet.

The same is true, regarding gender, gender identity gender preference, religion, or national origin, or nationality. Until we recognize that humanity faces an oncoming existential that, and that threat is not Christian, Muslim, Jew, Male, Female, Straight Gay, Trans, Black, White or Brown, and that we MUST work together to maximize every persons’ intellectual contribution, our complete extinction is only a matter of time. If we took the effort and energy we use to compete with one another, to oppress one another, to literally destroy one another, we can become our own “Super Race.”

Today, the weather is nice, so we settle into the cool soft sand and set up the monopoly board. The rules says everybody gets $2000 and an even number of turns. Of course, as we are supposed to believe in life, sometimes a roll comes up empty, sometimes we get to advance to GO and collect $200, so it is a bit of luck and a lot of good/bad decision making that determines the winner.

But to more reflect real life, our game today has one player, drawn at random, lets say as random as the chance of a person being born rich. This person receives $10,000 and will get $1000 every time he goes around go, he never has to go to jail, pay assessments, fines, or bail to get out of jail.
We will call him the “Rich” player. Two players get to play by the conventional rules. Two players get to play by “Special rules” they get $50 when they go around go, and cannot buy any property they land on, unless no one else wants to buy it, and if they do want to buy it, they have to pay double face value.

In our game, the players can not go out of the game, so there is no monopoly, the poorest player has to take on more debt to pay for the more and more expensive hotels he stays at, and all three of the regular and rich players have to pay up to fund the debt of the poor players. The poor players are still in debt, but the state still has to pay the debt.

Now, if, instead, we adjusted the game so that the rich guy only got $5000 to start and only $500 when he went past go, he would still be rich, and still have a great chance to win, but not now we distribute the rest of the same $15,000 we distributed to start the first game”

$10,000 Rich

$2,000 Regular

$2,000 Regular

$500 Special

$500 Special

Now we give it out like this

$10,000 Rich -$5,000 = $5,000

$2,000 Regular + $1,000 = $3,000

$2,000 Regular + $1,000 = $3,000

$500 Special + $1,500 =$2,000

$500 Special + $1,500 =$2,000

And then each time they passed go, they got proportional to their original distribution.

The Rich is still rich, the Special is still poorer than the other two classes, but now, they are a lot less likely to be a burden on the other players, they are less likely to run out of money and lose the game. The rich will still have a huge advantage, but it is a much fairer game where everyone at least has a chance.

Of course, we could tax the rich so that each person has the same amount, but in real life, most people don’t see that as fair, no matter how the rich person got rich.

This week, we have seen the rules rewritten in a shocking way:

Now the game is this:

$10,000 Rich + $500 = $5,500

$2,000 Regular – $150 = $1,850

$2,000 Regular – $150 = $1,850

$500 Special – $100 =$400

$500 Special – $100 =$400

Can anyone imagine how that extra $500 to the rich guy will benefit the game?